A warm fall day with a side of birds

The weather's rather warm for this time of year--low 80s--but it was still a beautiful day.
Morning to the left of me:


Morning to the right of me:

Another beautiful day in Central Pennsylvania!

Saw the first white-crowned sparrow of the season:

He didn't let me get any closer, so I'm on full zoom, which is a bit fuzzy. I just don't know what to make of my photographs sometimes. I wonder whether I'm expecting too much of the camera. It seems like even when I only use the optical zoom (not the digital), I still don't get what I would consider a sharp image. Is that just caused by hand movement, or is it just the nature of optical zoom? I knew digital zoom was making up pixels as it zoomed and thus was by definition a bit blurry, but I thought optical zoom was better quality. Anyway...

After work as I drove downtown to pick up Kat, I saw this character on the side of the highway:


He's so beautiful. I'm guessing adult red-tailed, but Stokes isn't that helpful in distinguishing age. I know from Birdchick's and Susan's blogs that some raptors' eye colors change as they mature, but I can't remember whether red-tails fall into that category, and again my Stokes doesn't say anything about eye color. Besides, it's hard to tell from these photos. It seemed reddish gold to me from the ground through the binocs. Perhaps someone can confirm age and who knows? maybe even sex? Come on, you raptor goddesses (read: Susan).

For some reason, as I pulled into the parking lot behind Kat's building, I had a strong craving for Mexican food. Sadly, this is the kind of place that passes for a Mexican restaurant in Central PA:

Apologies for the rear-view mirror reflected shot (traffic was heavy--home game for PSU), but honestly--it is pretty backward when you've got a taqueria that serves espresso. Gees, get your "ethnic" thing straight, people.

Blogging against a border wall in Texas

Elizabird just sent this email out to several bloggers, and I definitely want to weigh in.

Visit the No Border Wall blog before October 15 for information on how you can submit your comments on the proposed border wall.

Public comments are being accepted regarding the proposed idiotic idea of building a wall to keep out illegal immigrants along the border between Texas and Mexico. This idea is just plain idiotic for many reasons, the chief one being that WALLS DON'T WORK! Having lived in Harlingen near the border for almost half my life, I know for a fact that there's probably NO way to keep determined people from coming over the border into our country. They'll go over, under, or around these walls. They always have.

As long as people perceive the situation in America is better than that in Mexico, Mexicans will come to the USA. As long as there are people here willing to hire them, Mexicans will come to the USA. And believe me, there will ALWAYS be people in the USA to hire illegal immigrants, whether they be business owners trying to get cheap labor, farmers trying to get cheap pickers, or people trying to get cheaper childcare/maids. In addition to the people trying to exploit these immigrants are those who are sympathetic and are just trying to help them out, give them work, help them get food and shelter. They have walls in California, and you can bet they're not slowing down illegal immigration one bit. People will just end up paying "coyotes" (illegal human traffickers) to bring them over, and THAT is a fate you don't want to wish on anyone.

The second reason this wall is a bad idea is the environmental impact. Visit the blog to read about this, but plain and simple -- animals and birds will be hurt by this wall. After everything they've done down there to promote the wildlife and birdlife, much of it done with our tax dollars, we've got to step forward and demand that this wall proposal be scrapped.

Weekend recap and a new lifer

This weekend was rather bird intensive, so I'll get right to it. On Saturday morning, I went outside and heard a very buzzy warbler-like noise amongst the usual birdsounds in the backyard. I looked around and lo and behold, I saw my first palm warbler! He was bobbing his tail up and down like crazy, and the yellow patch on his underparts was really bright. The streaking on his chest was faint but obvious. Wow! I had my camera but I was too slow (and the light was too terrible) to get a better picture than this:

Still, I was pretty certain of my ID, and I confirmed it when I went back to this Birdchick post and saw her palm warbler. My bird looked just like the one Birdchick was holding. Whoot! My first positive warbler ID in my yard, and my first fall warbler ID, and a lifer! This excitement is really contributing to my mounting level of geeked-uppedness for the Cape May Autumn Weekend and First Birding Bloggers Conference. I can hardly believe it's already October; just four short weeks and I'll be in New Jersey, birding it up with other birders and bloggers, probably freezing my tail off, and (I hope) seeing tons of warbler action!

I also caught this little song sparrow:


and this crazy downy woodpecker pecking on the front corner of our house!

Clawsie was sitting in the window underneath, quite upset at the ruckus (which really wasn't that loud) and trying to look out the window and up at the bird. These pics were taken from the porch; check out this supreme disapproval:

I also paid a visit to the duck pond near PSU and caught this little bunch of mallards benefitting from a kind man who was feeding them just before I arrived:

And I finally got a pic of this Canada goose whose wings seem to be all wrong:

I've seen this goose every time I've gone to the pond, as well as another one who's only bad on one side. I've never seen these birds fly, even a short distance. What's wrong with them? What happened to their wings? They look all chewed up, and they always stick out like that.

So happy to finally have seen a palm warbler. Now if I can just get over this head cold....